If ticketing startup Eventbrite wants to become the Ticketmaster of do-it-yourself events, it just added a new board member who might have some ideas on how to get there. The company just added Sean Moriarty to its board of directors. Moriarty was previously the CEO of Ticketmaster, which he helped build into an events juggernaut between 2005 and March, 2009, when he left the company.
Whereas Ticketmaster rules ticketing for large events at concerts and sports stadiums, “Eventbrite is coming at event management from a grassroots effort,” says Moriarty. “It is effectively providing tools that did not previously exist.” Eventbrite lets anyone create and sell tickets for events ranging from backyard BBQs to TechCrunch 50 (we use Eventbrite for many of our conferences).
Last year, Eventbrite sold more than $100 million worth of tickets. Eventbrite takes various fees for paid tickets, including 2.5 percent of the ticket price, plus another 3 percent if it acts as the payment processor instead of a credit card or Paypal. (Watch our recent interview with the founders and Sequoia VC Roelof Botha).
“We want to do a billion dollars” worth of ticket sales, CEO Kevin Hartz told me about a month ago. Over the next few years, that is certainly possible.
By that point, Ticketmaster had better watch out.